Day to Day
by Iellix
Summary: *KILLED 3 May.* Hatter came through the Looking Glass and into a whole new world; Alice left a huge part of her life in Wonderland. Handling the Queen of Hearts and the Resistance wasn't so hard--but living day to day is.
1. And Lots of Other Things

I'm jumping on the bandwagon and writing my own 'Alice and Hatter after Wonderland' story. Well, why not? It's been running through my head for a while now as a series of disjointed stories and scenes. I'll stitch it all together. Somehow. In the meantime, enjoy the products of my imagination.

The title of this fic comes from a quote by Anton Chekov: _"Any idiot can handle a crisis; it's living day to day that wears you down."_

Disclaimer: Alice and Hatter, as well as all of the rest of the characters you're likely to recognize over the course of this story, are not my property. Neither is this particular version of Wonderland. It's the property of the SyFy channel.

o…o

It was a few weeks of getting settled and getting re-acclimated to living in New York and Hatter getting used to his new surroundings. They stumbled into bed together almost immediately meanwhile going through all of the getting-to-know-you stuff that they were too busy to bother with in Wonderland. Eventually they worked on going on an actual date.

They did pizza.

And lots of other things.

'Lots of other things' started almost before they got through dinner. She wore a low-cut top on purpose just to drive Hatter crazy and he spent the entire night pretending not to stare at her breasts. She gave him cheeky looks and grins and discreet touches and sat more than a little too close to him in the cab on the way back to his apartment—it all added up. By then he was white-knuckling it and the driver kept looking at them accusingly in the rear-view mirror, probably because he didn't fancy cleaning up after them if they fucked in his back seat.

They took the stairs ten at a time and Alice had to unlock the door, because Hatter couldn't figure out something as intellectually complex as a deadbolt lock and a key, not in his condition. They stumbled gracelessly through the door when it opened and he closed the door behind them with his foot.

Hatter's apartment was really Jack's old apartment, but it had been so modified and Hatter-ized that it was unrecognizable now. When Jack lived there it was black-and-white, sharp angles, and regular symmetrical shapes, which suited Jack just fine but wasn't Hatter's style at all. Now it looked like the abstract art exhibition at the museum—asymmetrical shapes, funny wavy lines, colours. There was a long sofa with fat velvet cushions and a circular bookcase full of books—all facing the wrong way; in the kitchen there was a round table with four mismatched chairs. The bedroom had a ridiculously ornate queen-sized bed; it takes up a good two-thirds of the floor space, so there was nothing else except for the chest of drawers and a hat-rack.

The whole place might as well have said 'Hatter' all over it in flashing neon letters.

They wandered in the general direction of the kitchen, in a lip-lock and arms tangled around each other, until they collided with the table and knocked down two of the four chairs—neither of them noticed—and Hatter lifted her up and plonked her down on the table.

They broke apart briefly for air and sat there panting. His arms were wrapped around her waist and his hands were clasped at her back; she wound her legs around his hips and crossed her ankles behind him. He leaned forward and kissed the soft hollow at the base of her throat; she mewled and tilted her head back so he could have access to her neck and he followed up her throat with slow, hot kisses.

She made a low whimpering groan and he laughed softly against her skin.

"Alice…"

Her name is a sigh on his lips.

"My Alice…"

He kissed her again, hot and sweet and deep, and plucked her up off the table. He only made it as far as the sofa because she licked and then bit his ear and he growled and dumped her on the cushions. Alice giggled.

They pulled their clothes off, scrambling with zippers and laces and popping buttons. Hatter's ever-present hat remained in place until sometime after they made their way to the bedroom. All Alice knew was that it wasn't there when she got up to leave. She didn't _want_ to leave—she'd rather have stayed there all night, curled up with him in the blankets—but she had to work in the morning.

She left a quick note for him: _'Have to get up tomorrow for work. Don't panic. Jabberwocky didn't eat me in the night! I'll call you tomorrow.'_ She agonized for a few seconds over how to sign it before settling on _'—Alice'._ She taped it to the electric kettle in the kitchen where she knew he'd find it in the morning, and then quietly left.

The buses weren't running at such an hour and she didn't feel like taking a cab, so she walked home. The route was through the safe part of town and she was confident in her ability to kick the ass of any creep who might have decided to make a grab at her along the way.

Her life had taken a lot of crazy turns in the last month since her tumble through the Looking Glass—not the least of which was Hatter.

She wasn't completely sure what she even _had_ with Hatter, anyway—this weird sort of friendly relationshippy affectionate animosity _thing_ didn't seem to fit the mold for any of the other relationships she'd had.

She trusted him in a way she'd rarely trusted anyone before; it began out of necessity, in Wonderland when she had no one else except for endearingly daft Charlie. It was a long time then, even, before she actually trusted him at all, but he proved himself to her. Now that she was out of that environment and back in her own world, where she habitually kept herself guarded and trusted no one who wasn't very close to her, she didn't know how to handle it.

Her mother was at first concerned about how suddenly Alice got over Jack and jumped into 'David's waiting arms; the Looking Glass dropped her more or less at the same time she left, even though she'd spent nearly a week in Wonderland. The story she and Hatter concocted was that they'd known each other briefly—_intensely—_some years ago and that Alice had never mentioned it. Since Alice was known for keeping things secret, even from her mother, their alibi wasn't questioned; neither was the revelation that Jack had a fiancée. She told her mother that after she chased Jack down she found out that he was engaged to another woman, and Carol seemed to buy that story, too.

And naturally Hatter charmed her mother quite easily; Hatter was a charming character and could talk his way into just about anyone's favour. Carol had grown quite fond of 'David' in the last few weeks, which Alice was glad of, except that she kept making snarky comments to her about a 'British Invasion' going on in her love life.

But she still wasn't sure what their whole relationship… _thing…_ was. Did she like him? Sure. Definitely. She liked him a _lot._ He was endearingly odd, he made her laugh. He was fun. They'd been through so much together that even if she hadn't fallen stupid, fairy-tale, head-over-heels for him, they still would have shared a bond. Did she _love_ him? She didn't know. They were… good friends, lovers. Boyfriend and girlfriend?

She really, _really_ didn't know.

She paused by a street-light so massage her temples.

Hatter and this _whatever_ she had with him was only part of her headache. The other part was more or less the rest of her life.

She couldn't just go back to her old life because so much of that had been left in Wonderland. She knew what happened to her dad, where he was, so there was no reason to look for him again and that was a huge part of her life that was left open now. What was she supposed to do with herself now? Go back to school? Go to full-time at the dojo? Change careers? Have a premature midlife crisis, and buy a red convertible and give herself a home perm and take up interpretive dance?

For so long her _entire life_ revolved around finding her father and answering all of those unanswered questions and she went after it full-tilt with blinders on and it never occurred to her that there might be a time when she had to do something _else._ She'd never planned out anything about her life. Everything she'd ever done since she was a girl and then as an adult had revolved around this. Everything else was just filler. Finding her dad was the focus of her life.

And now her search was over and she had the answers.

So… now what?

She had no idea and she couldn't even begin to guess.

There was so much left open now. She felt like she had to start all over again from scratch. A whole life, a purpose, an ambition—all gone. She had to start over again.

It was very nearly sunrise by the time she came to her building. The clock on her phone read 4.45am. She tiptoed up the stairs, opened the front door as quietly as possible. The alarm at the door beeped and it echoed through the room, and she hoped that her mother didn't hear it; she went to her room and collapsed into her cold, empty bed all alone where she promptly fell asleep.

The next morning she noticed she'd come home with her clothes on inside out, and had an enormous hickey on her neck. She covered the mark up with makeup as best as she could manage before going in to breakfast.

Carol said nothing about it at the table, or about her unusual arrival home, or about anything else. She didn't even seem to notice anything out of the ordinary about her daughter at all.

Alice wasn't sure what was worse: that she came back from a date at five the following morning with her clothes inside-out and a hickey on her neck—or that she came home from a date at five the next morning, with the hickey and the inside-out clothes _and_ that it wasn't seen as anything worth noticing.

She didn't know whether to be offended or relieved.

o…o

I'm not sure that Alice would be able to jump back into her life after everything that happened in Wonderland—it seemed to me like her whole purpose in life was to find her dad and get the answers to her questions. After she found him, lost him, and got all the answers… I think she'd feel lost. Life is messy and complicated. It's fun to write stories where it isn't. But sometimes it's more fun to write stories where it _is._


	2. The Intruder

Ahh, the only good thing that comes from having to work early is that I get my updates out in a timely manner. (Instead of my normal wakeup-time, ten or so in the morning, because I are one lay-zee girl.) Unfortunately, I'm a real devil before lunch, and no one is safe. This morning I bit the paperboy. Well, he was askin' for it what with being insufferably cheerful for seven in the morning. (What, me? Anger management issues? No way!)

o…o

She felt badly about having to skip out on Hatter the last few times and leave him in the night—in order to get to work on time she kept having to get up and go home instead of spending the night with him, which she didn't like doing but it was either that or come up with innovative excuses for being late to work every other day. So she decided to spend the weekend with him. They didn't leave his apartment once.

Alice was far, far from innocent—she was sixteen the first time she had sex and did it frequently since—and she'd had many a lover in her life. Her mind didn't always, or even _often,_ associate sex with love. Certainly she didn't _love_ all of the guys she'd been with; there were times she didn't even _like_ them, but they were reasonably good-looking and at the time she was absolutely gagging for a good lay. Sometimes she felt very strongly for the guys she'd been with, but just as often there was little affection involved at all. It was something purely physical, pent-up sexual frustration being let out. Not unlike beating the tar out of a punching bag when she was angry. Just an outlet.

Love and sex were two different things to her—sometimes they'd coincide, like a Venn diagram, but they definitely weren't mutually inclusive. So sex with someone she actually had _feelings_ for was something she hadn't experienced much of. She slept with Jack, and she _thought_ she maybe almost loved him at the time, but something about it didn't feel quite right to her. It was like he was trying too hard to convince her he was sincere. And he was kind of lousy in bed. Really well-hung but had no idea how to use it. Sex with Hatter was different. For one thing, she let him top, which was something she hardly let anyone do; she had a compulsive need to be in charge of things and she had to trust a man a great deal in order to let him have the upper hand in bed. But what she said in the casino wasn't a lie: she trusted him completely. And Hatter was a spectacular lover. It wasn't surprising—he was a man of a great many talents. He could do things to her that would make her back arch and her toes curl. Sometimes she had to peel herself off the ceiling.

Whether it was because she had feelings for him or because he was just _really good _in bed she couldn't say. She felt _something_ strong for him, but she had no idea if it was love or not. She liked him—a _lot,_ very _intensely,_ for sure—but 'love' was, to use Hatter's phrase, another kettle of onions. It was all so soon and so quick, and even though their rapidly blossoming relationship wasn't triggering her flight instinct, something still kept her from calling it love.

The sex was still spectacular, though.

It was late evening on Sunday when he brought Alice home.

"I hope your mother isn't upset that I kept you all weekend," he said as they climbed the stairs to her apartment.

"Don't worry about it," she said, nudging the door open with her hip. "Her car wasn't outside, she must be out."

"So… we're alone?"

She disarmed the alarm. "Don't get any ideas," she told him.

He closed the door behind him once they were both inside. "To be honest, we've been through most of my ideas since Friday. It'll take me a few days to come up with more."

She put her arms over his shoulders and stood taller to kiss him. "I'm sure that won't be too hard for a smart guy like you."

Then she playfully knocked his hat back with her fingers and turned to go into the kitchen.

"Can I raid the bookshelf again?" He asked as he eyed the bookshelves in the living room. Alice and her mother had quite a vast collection of books between them: old textbooks from all of their school days combined, books her father used to read, collected series, popular books, unpopular books, all kinds of encyclopaedias, books that reflected interests that had long been forgotten. And Hatter absolutely _loved_ books. She'd never met anyone who read quite as ravenously as he did.

Hatter would read just about anything and was swiftly making his way through the contents of her bookshelves because he'd borrow more books whenever he was there. He had a card for the public library and he spent a good amount of time there, too, when he wasn't with her—because books, he told her, were probably the quickest and easiest way for him to learn everything about her world—but he just as often came and took books out of her apartment because borrowing her books gave him an excuse to see her more often.

In Wonderland, he'd told her, the Queen had strict control over what material was and wasn't allowed to be seen by the citizens. Anything the Queen didn't like—because she thought it was likely to entice her citizens to rebel, or because it was too controversial, or because she was too stupid to understand it—was banned. Books were contraband. One of the things that enticed Hatter to assist the Resistance was that in doing so he got access to their Great Library.

Words were important to him—a mastery of them was what allowed him to survive for so long living life as a double-agent in such a dangerous place. Sometimes, he said, it was nice to remember that words could be used for something else besides conning.

"Go ahead," she called from the kitchen. "D'you want a bag or something to put 'em in this time? Last time you took too many with you and dropped them."

"So I won't take so many this time," he said, poking his head into the kitchen. Alice was rifling through the cupboards.

"Come on, even _you_ don't believe that," she snorted, trying to find something to eat in the pantry.

"Uh-huh. And _you_ know just as well as I do that your mother's kitchen isn't somewhere you're going to find _food."_

She backed out of the pantry. That was truer than she liked to admit—she and her mother, between the two of them, could hardly remember to keep any food in the apartment unless it was a special occasion. When Alice was little Carol worked two jobs just to make ends meet and in her spare time tried to track down her missing husband, and she sometimes forgot to do frivolous, useless things like buy food; Alice learned from her mother, and spent most of her own time trying to find her father when she wasn't teaching or beating the hell out of something at the dojo, so _she_ hardly ever remembered to buy groceries either.

If it weren't for her friend's family, they probably would've forgotten so much they'd've starved.

"Feel like ordering pizza?" She asked, heading for the fridge for a look, just for the hell of it, because she knew it was likely empty.

"No—my head associates pizza with sex."

"Why's that bad?" She asked with a cheeky little smile.

"It's just that there'd be a very real risk that your mother could turn up and walk in on us going at it like rabbits."

She shook her head and ducked into the fridge, knowing there probably wasn't anything in there except for that jar of what she thought _might_ be apple butter and which she _knew_ came with them when they moved from New Rochelle. The big paper grocery bag with the note stapled to it surprised her.

"Huh—what's this?" She asked nobody in particular, pulling it out and tearing the note off. Her face lit up as she instantly recognized the handwriting.

"What is it?" Hatter asked.

"Groceries."

"Your mother bought food?"

She shook her head and kept reading and her face broke into a wide and cheerful grin.

"It's from JD," she said, as if that explained everything.

"What's a JD?"

She rooted through the bag, pulling out the contents—milk, eggs, bread, fruit, cold cuts, and other essentials.

"He's a friend of mine," she explained. "We've known each other forever—he's the guy who takes the photos."

JD was a photographer who did weddings and graduations and parties and the like in order to pay his bills and not starve to death, but whose real passion was art photography; Alice had been his on-again, off-again model since they were in high school. Hatter had seen some if the pictures he took, and some of those pictures were nudes, making him immediately suspect of the faceless man behind the camera.

"Oh?"

"Not _that_ kind of friend," she said quickly for at least the hundredth time. "Our parents were always friends—his dad and my dad knew each other. And I know all of his siblings, too. We were all kinda close. His mom died around the same time my dad disappeared, so we sorta went through the whole 'missing a parent' thing together. They look out for us, since my mom and me don't look out for ourselves like we should. He hasn't been around for a while—I think he moved in with some girl, so I haven't seen him in a long time."

"Clearly this isn't the first time he's fed you."

"No, it's not. They do it all the time."

"How'd he get in here, anyway?"

"He has a key."

"Oh."

Alice finished reading the note and snickered softly.

"What's it say?" He asked, going through the bag himself. No tea—how typical.

She read from the note, "'I'm back in the city for the time being, long story. I figured you'd need another visit from the grocery fairy. You need to get rid of the jar of apple butter, I think it's older than we are. I'll call you. P.S, who's the hot guy in the hat you were molesting in the parking lot?'"

His eyebrows climbed his head.

"No, really," she showed him the note. "That's what it says."

He didn't look entirely comfortable and she had a sneaking suspicion she knew why. JD was her best friend—most women had female best friends or even _gay_ best friends and JD was neither. She was really, _really_ close to him and had a sort of… easy, flirtatious, intimate friendship with him that often intimidated boyfriends. It intimidated JD's girlfriends, too. Having a best friend of the opposite sex was sometimes more trouble than it was worth. Hatter might've been different than most of her other boyfriends, and he might be a native of a totally different _universe,_ but he was still a _guy,_ and he was still prone to the same insecurities that all other men were prone to.

"He's just my friend. Really," she assured him. "I wouldn't lie to you."

"You keep saying that—I believe you, you don't have to keep on telling me."

"Then why d'you look like you're so suspicious, hm?"

He gave a noncommittal shrug and went back into the living room to raid the bookshelf.

Here it was, Alice decided. The first major hurdle in their fledgling relationship-thing.

But, hey—it wasn't a Jabberwocky or the entire established government, so considering what else they'd been through she imagined it wouldn't be too wildly difficult to work their way through.

o…o

JD is going to play a rather significant role in this story. So is his family. No, I'm not saying why. I'm an evil old lady for keeping secrets. Poor Hatter, being suspicious. Whether or not Alice and JD really _are_ 'just friends' remains to be revealed.

Feedback is, as always, most welcome but not demanded for continuation of the story. I hope you enjoyed!


	3. Strangers

This chapter introduces another new character. A female one. I'll put you to rest right now: no, she is _not_ going to be a rival for Hatter's affection. I promise. Hatter just needs a friend, I think, and since Alice has JD I figure Hatter can have a female friend.

Disclaimer: The characters, places, themes, etc… that you recognize are not my property. If you don't recognize it, chances are I made it up.

o…o

He _shouldn't_ have been so apprehensive, so worried; Alice assured him that the mysterious JD was only a friend, and he believed her. Or at least, he _told himself_ to believe her, but he couldn't get the idea of her and this other guy out of his head. No heterosexual man alive could possibly be friendly with Alice and not want to be something _more_ than friends, he thought. But then again, he was probably biased.

Still. It worried him.

He knew Alice had a past, knew she was _far_ from being an innocently blushing virginal girl, and the knowledge that she _did_ have other men in her past didn't really bother him. It didn't even really bother him that one of them was the now-King of Wonderland, considering she'd turned him down flat and chosen _him_ instead.

But there was something about JD that made him deeply suspicious, and he'd never even met him. Maybe it was the way Alice's face lit up when she was talking to him over the phone, the way she'd been so excited and happy at the thought of seeing him again. It was probably just because, like she'd told him, they were very good friends and she hadn't seen him in a long time. But part of him worried it might be something else.

He was starting to repulse himself—he was _not_ the jealous type!

He walked back from the library in the blindingly bright sunshine of the afternoon; the air was contrastingly cold, sharp, crisp. His breath made little clouds in the air around him. The strap on his right shoulder dug in and dragged, slowing his walk considerably. Alice gave him something she called a 'knapsack' to ferry books back and forth from his apartment, because those paper grocery bags she was letting him use kept ripping and spilling their contents all over the street. This 'knapsack' was plain black and obviously well-used, the single shoulder-strap worn from being used so much. But it helped him get his books back and forth so he was quite grateful for it.

Maybe he should've taken Alice up on her offer to go with her to meet JD for lunch. He didn't work today and the whole _not knowing_ about his possible potential competition was starting to make him crazy. He didn't even have a _face_ to put to the name of the man he was starting to despise for no other reason than because Alice was so fond of him.

"No thanks," he'd told Alice when she made the offer, doing his best to keep his voice light even though he was in a steadily declining mood.

"You sure?" She asked, looking at him through the reflection in her bedroom mirror. "It's no trouble and he said I could bring you."

He'd just given her a wave of his hand and declined again. "Naw. You said it yourself, you haven't seen him in a while and you want to catch up. There's nothing more boring than sitting there like a third wheel and listening to other people's reminisces."

And then she'd just shrugged and that was that.

Now he was starting to regret it.

He wasn't even the jealous type. Not really. He'd always been quite content to let the chips fall where they may, as it were, in personal relationships. He channelled all of his inherent controlling-ness into his Tea House in Wonderland, and into keeping himself alive. When it came to women he didn't have a lot of finicky controlling-ness left so he was rarely ever bothered by anything that happened. That the majority of the women in Wonderland were pretty vacant and shallow and not lucid enough to pursue relationships on the side probably played into things, too.

In fact, he'd always scoffed at the men who _did_ worry about women's other friendships, especially those with men. So why the hell was he so concerned about Alice and JD?

When he thought about it, he was torn between jealousy at their friendship and disgust at his apparent possessiveness.

He shoved his fists in his pockets and kicked debris on the pavement and turned off to take the long way back to his flat through the park. He could walk and think at the same time.

The park was agreeable and lively, even in this cold. People in curiously unattractive clingy fluorescent clothes jogged; dog-owners played with their pets; parents pushed their children on swings and minded them on the playground while talking to each other and sharing containers of hot beverages. There was even a horse and rider trotting through, both of them bundled in warm coverings and snorting clouds of their breath into the air.

The concept of a public park was something alien to him, coming from the veritable concrete jungle that was Wonderland. The only 'nature' that existed were the expansive forests, and most people associated _those_ with danger—Jabberwockies, bandersnatch, snark, and all manner of dangerous, long-leggety beasties and things that went 'bump' in the night existed in those woods and no one ventured into them if it wasn't a matter of life or death.

People here seemed to kind of like nature—this little pocket of manicured nature, with its lines of trees and shrubs, dormant flower gardens that he was sure looked positively radiant during the spring and summer when they were in bloom, cobbled paths, and sloping hills. It was pretty, and _tame,_ and as he walked through the depths of it, so quiet and peaceful, it was kind of hard to believe that all around it was a bustling city full of people and cars.

It was nice, he decided. A little captive nature like a goldfish in a bowl. A little like the grass carpet he once kept in his office. It was pretty and it smelled good.

Hatter let his mind wander as he walked.

He stepped out across the road, away from the peaceful park and back into the city. He passed people who gave him a politely friendly nod and wave and he waved back.

That was another thing about this city that was so different from Wonderland—people who actually acknowledged other people as actually existing. People who were _friendly._ In Wonderland, if a person couldn't offer you something you needed, then you ignored them. For some reason Alice seemed to have adopted an entirely cynical view of the world around her, declaring quite firmly that people were awful, but he didn't see that; but then, he mused, she and him must have had two completely different perspectives on what made other people 'terrible'. He'd seen some of the worst of humanity in his time, after all; not having to wear body armour and not being shot at was something that made him almost giddy.

He was so caught up in thought that he didn't see the dog until it was far too late.

The dog hurled itself at him, barking joyfully, catching him completely off-guard and knocking him clean off of his feet. A few minute's scuffle and a brief panic-attack and Hatter managed to push himself away, and a young woman so small she looked like she could ride that enormous animal around like a pony came and grabbed the dog by the lead. It was absolutely the biggest dog he'd ever seen and it came up to its handler's waist.

"I am so, _so_ sorry!" She said, terror written plainly in her face. "Are you all right? Are you hurt? Oh my god, I'm _so sorry!"_

She reached down to offer him a hand, keeping her other hand firmly on the dog's collar; the enormous brown-and-white dog with that floppy face and disgusting drool stalactites was wagging his tail and looking ridiculously proud of itself.

"I'm fine," Hatter said quickly, pulling himself to his feet.

That did little to reassure the young woman, who still looked frightened and worried.

"I have no idea what could've gotten into him," she said apologetically. "He _never_ does anything like that. Ever. He's a big teddy bear, I dunno _what_ happened."

She bit her lower lip and fidgeted nervously with the lead.

He frowned slightly; this girl—woman—whatever she was—talked like he did. Alice told him that there were people who lived in other countries in her world who had accents similar to his and Jack's, and all of his manufactured paperwork said he came from England, but he'd never actually encountered someone (he'd stopped calling them 'Oysters' now) who talked like he did.

"Please don't call the cops," she begged. "He didn't mean it, I swear. I can… I can try to pay, if you're hurt, or if anything's damaged. Just please don't report it, he never would've hurt you, he wasn't trying to be mean. Please."

"It's okay," he said quickly. "Really. It's fine. Don't look so scared, please, you're making me nervous."

Silence.

"You're not gonna call the police? And… and have him destroyed?" She looked so hopeful it was almost heartbreaking.

"Of course not. Why would I do that?"

"Because… he… jumped on you?"

He shrugged. "He's a dog. Dogs do that."

"Oh, thank you," she breathed, sighing and leaning forward with her hands on her knees. "Oh, that's such a relief."

"You seem a little high-strung, are you okay?"

"I am now," she said. "People are usually scared of big dogs like him. They think they're evil or something. You see it in papers and shit all the time—big dogs attacking toddlers or what have you, it makes it seem like they're monsters. They never tell you that the dog was defending itself because the toddler kept poking it in the face with a stick."

Hatter couldn't help a smile.

The girl smiled, too. She was kind of pretty, he thought, in a way completely different from Alice. She was all circles—a round face, round figure, big dusty-green eyes. Her hair was reddish and improbably long, in a long plait that came all the way down her back and the last few inches of it was tucked into the back pocket of her jeans.

"Are you sure you're all right?" She asked again.

"Yeah. No blood. I don't think I've dropped anything—" he turned around to make a quick visual sweep of the area, and patted his coat pockets to make sure he still had his wallet and keys and all of his library books. He did.

"Oh—_oh._ Wow. That's… wow," he heard the girl say.

"What?"

"Holy cow."

Now he was concerned that maybe the dog really _had_ hurt him and he just hadn't noticed it—it wouldn't be the first time he'd been injured and failed to realize it until someone else pointed it out to him.

And then he felt the draft.

His eyes went wide and he reached back quickly and was surprised to feel bare skin and the soft cottony fabric of his underwear.

The dog had ripped his trousers; the ripped portion was hanging by the remaining threads, the hole going from the waistband halfway down his thigh and was as wide as his hand.

"Well, fuck," he said simply. Then he covered his mouth for having sworn. "Sorry."

"S'okay. I think the situation merits a good swear," she said, her expression caught somewhere between bemusement and concern. It was the sort of thing, he imagined, that would be funny in a few days.

"So, uhm… I should…"

"Look, my flat's just around the corner. I'm a fair hand with a needle and thread, I can sew that up for you in a few minutes. It's the least I can do."

He eyed the dog suspiciously but he was sitting on the pavement, thumping his tail, and looking completely unthreatening.

"It'd beat walking back to wherever you live with that hole in your pants," she offered.

"Yeah… sure…"

Which was how he ended up trouserless in a strange apartment with a woman he'd never met before.

"My eyes are covered," he heard her through the bathroom door. "I've got a blanket here, you can cover up with that."

"Thanks."

The bathroom door opened just a crack and a little hand clutching an afghan appeared.

"Pass me your trousers," she said. "D'you want a cup of tea or something while you wait?"

Ah, something familiar.

"Yes, please."

He wrapped the blanket around his waist and hitched it up with one hand and exited the bathroom; the apartment was small, even smaller than his apartment, with a little cramped living room and a little cramped kitchen where the young woman was setting a kettle on to boil; his trousers were on the table next to a sewing box. The dog was laying down on the rug in front of the front door, head on his massive paws.

She sat down and began to work.

"You can sit, you know. The furniture's all paid for."

"Oh—right. Um, thanks."

There was an awkward silence for a few minutes until she spoke again.

"My name's Nel, by the way."

She looked up at him.

"I figured we could be on first-name terms."

"I'm Hatter," he said before remembering that he wasn't supposed to go by that name here. "Or, David, rather. David Hatter."

"Well which do you prefer?" She asked, not looking up. "David, or Hatter?"

He thought for a second. "Hatter."

"Hatter it is then. I'm sorry, again—about Bello, I mean."

He frowned. "'Bello'?"

She nodded toward the dog. "Him. Bello, it's short for Bellerophon."

He knew that name, didn't he? From all the books he'd been reading. "The hero with the Pegasus?" He asked.

She grinned. "Yeah. You know it? Most people have no idea."

"I read a lot."

When the kettle screamed, she poured the tea, and the conversation lasted until she put the last knot in the thread of his newly-mended trousers and their cups were dry.

Despite how it'd begun, he enjoyed it. It had been so long since his tea shop was an _actual_ tea house that he'd forgotten why he liked having it. It was one of his favourite things about it: sitting down to tea and conversation with a stranger.

Even if it only lasted a little while, he felt quite at home.

o…o

Nel's character has been floating around in my head for some time now. She doesn't play a particularly big role; she functions just as a friend to Hatter. Mostly to show him that yes, men and women can be friends. It sounds pretty basic but it's surprising how many people don't think they _can_ be.

As usual, feedback of any kind, should you choose to leave it, is much appreciated—but never demanded.


	4. Unnecessary Complications

Life gets complicated starting about here. As nice as it is to think that Hatter and Alice could go right to having a relationship comprised entirely of rainbows and butterflies after what they went through together, I'm not sure they could. They both have their fair shares of hangups and that makes things difficult. But that's life, eh? It's difficult. This chapter might also make some of you really hate Carol. I apologize in advance!

o…o

With her best friend back in her life, and a boyfriend she actually _trusted,_ Alice thought that maybe she was due for a little happiness and stability and normalcy for a while. But if there was one thing Alice knew for damn certain about her life, it was that it was hardly ever easy and _far_ from normal.

It'd been a while now since she'd thought of her father; before her trip through the Looking Glass, she obsessively searched for him and was always watching, looking, thinking. She tried to spot him in crowds, looked for any trace of him whenever she was elsewhere, scoured the internet for any sign of him, and he was always, _always_ on her mind. Everything she did revolved around finding him.

Not anymore.

There was no need.

She filled that gaping hole in her life and keep busy, but she didn't even know how to be normal so she found herself at a loss. Almost all of the friends she'd had had long since left, just like the trail of ex-boyfriends behind her, because they didn't understand her compulsive desire to find her father and her zealousness scared them off.

All roads led her back to the same problem: what the hell was she supposed to do with her life now? She felt like she'd lost her direction.

She _had_ to let her father rest and she _had_ to go on with her life.

There were other things on her mind, too. Having JD _and_ Hatter with her should have been a good thing, but it wasn't. It all came down to a very, very old problem: her boyfriend was suspicious of her male best friend. She hated it when that happened—she hated it when the guys in high school made a big deal out of it, and she hated it when the adult boyfriends in her life couldn't handle it, and she hated it when Jack was suspicious, and she hated it now when Hatter was suspicious.

There was only so many times she could explain that no, she was not in love with JD and she never had been, but no matter how often she explained it, people were always inclined to believe that there _had to be_ some kind of romantic tension in their friendship simply because their genitals didn't match.

And what was worse—not only did Hatter clearly have a problem with it but he was being stubborn and didn't want to talk to her. He was just sulking and being morose and bristling whenever he heard JD's name.

While yes, she _had_ been spending a lot of time with JD, it was purely innocent. He was her best friend and two years ago he ran off to California in pursuit of a girl and she hadn't heard much from him since; she was just glad he was back.

Maybe she just needed to pin Hatter down and _make_ him talk about it.

Crossing the road deep in thought, she almost didn't notice the truck until it honked at her and she leaped to the safety of the pavement. She went around to the back lobby of the apartment building and unlocked the mailbox before going up to go home. She idly flipped through the mail as she climbed the stairs, looking for the college information she'd sent away for two weeks ago. She figured that school was a good place to start if she wanted to figure out what to do with her life.

She got to the door and then stopped dead in her tracks.

What was _that?_

She was sitting at the table, looking accusatory and knowing it, when her mother came home, humming mindlessly to herself.

"Hi, Alice. No David today? I thought you were attached at the hip."

"He's having a bitchfit about JD, I'm letting him cool himself off."

"Oh, not _this_ again," she sighed heavily. "Is that what you want to talk about?"

"No, it's not."

"Then is there a reason you're sitting there looking at me like I've committed some kind of crime?"

She didn't say anything and instead fixed her mother with what she hoped was a withering scowl.

"I've been home for a minute and a half, what the hell did I do?" Her mother asked.

But Alice wasn't in the mood for jokes.

"All right, what is it?" The woman asked, dropping her coat and purse and pulling up a chair.

Alice pushed a thick envelope over the table. "What's this, Mom?"

Carol cast a halfhearted glance. "Looks like mail. Is that all we got?"

"I'm being serious. Mom, this is official stuff. From the census board. And it's addressed to _miss_ Carol Hamilton. Now, unless I got hit harder than I thought when I had that confrontation with Jack, _I'm_ 'miss' Hamilton. You're married."

"You know, the CIA should fire all of its interrogators and just hire you."

"Mom!"

Carol sighed and rubbed the spot between her eyes, frustrated. "This conversation had to happen eventually, I guess. Would you like some hot chocolate? I have a feeling we're going to be talking for a while."

"No. I want answers."

"Okay."

"Well?"

"You haven't asked me any questions yet."

"What the hell is this all about, Mom? I want you to start at the beginning."

o…o

Alice's life was unnecessarily and frustratingly complicated. There were days when she just wished she could pop up somewhere else as a completely different person. And today was one of those days.

JD was up to his eyeballs unpacking all of the personal belongings he mailed to himself when he left California—which was to say everything he couldn't cram into his one suitcase, which was most of his belongings. He'd left in an awful hurry and didn't have time to sort everything out properly; everything arrived at the same time and now he was sorting through all of it.

But she'd talked to him anyway because she _had to_ talk to _someone, _and it only made her mood worse when she found out that he already _knew_ about it. Why was she always the last person in the universe to find out about important things like this? Especially when they were important things that pertained to _her._

Hatter wasn't being any help, either, because he was still having a fit because of JD, and it was just one more thing to bother her.

Just one more load of shit piled on her.

She felt her nerves slowly starting to frazzle and fray and she was becoming a wreck very quickly. She wasn't talking to her mother. She couldn't. She was too angry.

She went for a walk in the park in hopes of clearing her head, but it didn't help. Her thoughts kept going in a hundred directions at once and her emotions were a jumbled mess and she was so distracted she collided with a bare tree and ended up in a compromising and moderately sexual position with the trunk.

"You shouldn't do that," she heard someone say. "People will think you've got a tree fetish."

"Hatter?"

He leaned around a fat ancient oak, which was blocking the rest of him from view. He was sitting near the pond, tossing bits of bread to a little group of ducks looking for handouts.

She should've been glad to see him but she just felt like it was one _more_ thing to deal with right now.

"Thought you'd be out with JD on a day like this," he sad casually, but the bitterness in his voice was apparent.

"You're not gonna drop that, are you?" She grumbled. "Ever."

He turned back around so he was hidden from view again; she followed him.

"Real mature, Hatter."

He ignored her.

She sighed heavily and jabbed her boot into one of the knobbly roots sticking up from the ground.

"I'm really not in the mood for this right now," she said flatly. "If you don't wanna talk I'm just gonna go."

"Suit yourself," he said with a shrug. "It's not like we planned to meet here."

She turned to go but immediately turned back around and stood over him, her arms crossed and her eyebrows knit, furious.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" She demanded. "I'm not a mind-reader. I can't tell what's going on in your head. If something's up you've gotta tell me."

Grunt.

She kicked the root again. "Whatever—I'll just go on my way. This is so _stupid, _Hatter. I really, _really_ don't need this crap right now. I've got other things to worry about." With that she turned to leave.

He fiddled with his hat.

"Look, there's a lot of crap in my life right now, okay?" Her voice was starting to crack and rise. "I don't need you having a little girly bitchfit just because my best friend has a penis."

"You think that's it, huh?"

"I dunno _what_ to think. It's not like you tell me." She didn't feel like dealing with this right now. There was too much going on in her head to argue effectively with Hatter and whenever she started losing an argument with anyone she usually just hit them.

"Geez, what's gotten into you lately?"

She didn't respond.

"Well?"

She shook her head like a wet dog and clutched her coat tighter around herself. "Look, this isn't the time or place."

"Uh-huh."

He stepped from side to side in front of her, blocking her escape and frustrating her further.

"D'you wanna talk or _what?"_ She spat, thumping him soundly on the chest.

"Seriously, what's wrong?"

There was a long, long, uncomfortable silence. She felt her temper boiling steadily under her skin.

Too much crap.

Too much to deal with.

She wanted to punch Hatter in the stomach and run.

"My mom divorced my dad and she never told me!"

It just exploded out of her and hung in the air between them.

"What?"

"My mom… she divorced my dad."

Pause.

"What's a divorce?"

Hatter's comparative unfamiliarity with much of her world never usually bothered her like this, but she forced herself to calm down, take a deep breath.

"Un-married. Divorce is when a marriage ends."

"Oh."

Another pause.

"So… she un-married him? Alice, he's been gone a long time, even you're moving on—"

"She did it _five years ago_ and she never told me about it!"

She buried her face in her hands and cried. Just cried and shrieked and shook and drooled all over herself and didn't care.

"If one spouse goes missing, the state can legally dissolve the marriage if the one left wants to, even though there's one of them missing."

She snuffled messily.

"And now she's gotten started on the paperwork to have him declared dead. The state can do that, too, if no evidence of a missing person turns up in seven years."

She expected him to point out that her father _was_ dead, expected him to say that it had been more than ten years in 'Oyster time' and that maybe it was time that her mother _did_ give him up for dead.

But he didn't.

Instead he just stepped closer and gingerly put his arms around her; when she didn't shove him away, he hugged her a little tighter. She wrapped her arms around him and held onto him like they were on a speeding flamingo, then cried hard into his shirt.

"She didn't tell me!" She sobbed.

He stroked her back and pressed his lips against her hair.

"I know he's dead and I know he's gone and I know he wasn't even my dad for most of the time he was away, but… I dunno. It just seems so final. I can't believe she kept something like that a secret from me for so long."

She sobbed a little harder into his chest and growled angrily, frustratedly.

"Why did she keep it from me? God-fucking-_dammit,_ that's something I oughtta know!"

"I'm sure there was a _reason_ for it—" Hatter began.

"JD knew," she said softly. "JD, and his three sisters and his brother. And their dad, Ray. For all I know the fucking _paperboy_ knew about it. But not me. He's my dad and she never even fucking told me! Nobody told me! Nobody thought this was something I should fucking _know!"_

Then she stopped blubbering and ranting and just cried and cried, and Hatter held her and stroked her hair and they both ignored the stares from the people walking around them.

"I'm so sorry, Alice," he whispered.

"Me, too." She stood back a little and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. "I got your shirt all wet and drooly."

"S'okay."

"Snot, too."

Strangely, he didn't care too much.

o…o

So… yeah. Some of you are going to hate me (and Carol) for this, but it'll become clear later on. And you're probably not too fond of Hatter, either, for the fit he's having over this JD character. Well, he's suspicious. Is there anything to his suspicion? We shall see…


	5. A Break Between Scenes

Is it safe for me to come out from behind my barricade yet? This chapter, I hope, offers some answers! I'll clean up the mess I've made of Hatter and Alice's relationship soon enough, too.

o…o

He didn't _dislike_ Carol—he couldn't, after all, because she'd raised Alice, so that meant she couldn't be _all_ bad, right? He knew it must have been hard for her, dealing with a ten-year-old Alice and a missing husband and juggling two jobs and her frantic years-long search for him, all at the same time.

So, he admired Carol Hamilton and he kind of liked her a little bit because of everything she went through in her life but that she still managed to come out all right.

But after hearing she'd hidden her un-marriage—what had Alice called it? Divorce?—from Alice and seeing how angry it made her made Hatter like her a little less.

Alice was kind of a wreck. She was shuffling back and forth between his apartment and other places where she said she could 'couch surf' for a while. She didn't talk much, kept quiet, and fumed silently. And then every so often she'd have an explosive cry, or scream and her anger would get suddenly very loud and very open. It was painful for him to watch.

If he knew Alice, it wasn't what her mother _did_ that bothered her so much—though that was a large part of it; it was the fact that her mother did it so long ago and never told her about it. If Alice hadn't figured something fishy was going on herself, and pressed her mother about it, then she might _never_ have known.

And that bothered him.

Then there was this whole business about having Carpenter—Robert—'declared dead', which Alice said just meant making his death official. So far as anyone in this world knew, he was just 'missing'. Carol was going through what must have been the very _difficult_ process of acknowledging her husband's death. She didn't actually _know_ that her husband was shot and killed in Wonderland; all she knew was that he'd been missing with no sign and no evidence that he was still alive, so she was simply going about making the acceptance of his death 'official'.

Was she going to hide that from Alice, too, he wondered? Alice wondered that, too—that was part of what was bothering her so much. Since the only reason she knew about the divorce was by finding something she shouldn't have, was Carol planning on keeping _this_ a secret from her daughter?

He didn't know her well enough to say, but the thought of it bothered him. That wasn't something she should keep to herself—after all, like Alice said, he was _her_ father and it was her right to know these things.

Realistically it was none of his business, because it wasn't his family, but he cared for Alice and it upset her, so by extension it upset _him._

Hatter wasn't working today, which left him free for the library and books. Because he had two part-time jobs he sometimes ended up with the odd day off during the week, when everyone else was still at work; but he _liked_ working two jobs, because he never got bored. Half the time he was working in a second-hand bookstore, and the other half of the time he was in a tiny little tea shop—a proper tea shop—in what Alice called the 'artsy' part of town.

And he had a few days off when he could do anything he liked. Like plough through mountains of books.

When Alice was in a less-abysmal mood she sometimes poked fun of him for spending so much time in the library—she said he was getting prison pallor.

At least he got fresh air when he walked where he needed to go. Even riding his motorbike got him _some_ fresh air, even though it was hardly practical when the mercury dipped in the thermometers. The license manufactured for him in Wonderland to allow him to drive a vehicle on _this_ side of the Looking Glass—since they didn't just trust that people who didn't know how to drive wouldn't do so, not here—only permitted him to drive a motorcycle. It was Jack Heart's last 'fuck you' to him for winning Alice over, he imagined.

He was on foot today, though, wrapped in a long coat and a scarf and gloves.

He heard some dogs barking and his immediate reaction was to reach behind himself and protect the seat of his pants.

"Will you guys slow _down?"_ He heard someone begging piteously. "I've only got two feet, you have more than I do!"

He knew that voice.

The first thing he saw was dogs. All of them were identical little stocky tawny-and-black things with wiry-looking hair and big ears that stood straight up. None of them alone looked too strong, but as there were four of them it probably added up. They pulled enthusiastically on their leads, dragging their handler with them.

None of _these,_ at least, were tall enough to reach the seat of his pants, so he relaxed, though they could probably do a good job damaging his ankles if they were so inclined.

"Hello," he greeted casually.

Nel looked up from the tangle of dogs and leads around her feet. When she looked up at him, she smiled. She had a _really_ impressive black eye.

"What the hell happened to _you?"_

"Huh?" She frowned for a second, like she didn't know what he was talking about. Then she reached up and touched the bruise around her eye. "Oh—that. I, uh… I whacked myself on a saddle horn."

Hatter snorted and then quickly bit his lips so he wouldn't laugh.

"Yeah, I know," she said, then she shrugged. "I hardly ever use a western saddle, but I did the other day and I kind of forgot there was a horn until, well… yeah. Makes me look like I hang out in biker bars and get into fights, doesn't it?"

He looked at the little stocky dogs tangling themselves up in their leads. "No Bello today?" He asked. He'd met Nel a few more times while she was walking that behemoth dog and they'd struck up something of an acquaintanceship. Sometimes she had other dogs with her, instead of Bello.

"Naw," she said. "Today's Tuesday. I don't walk him on Tuesdays."

"Oh."

"He's not mine," she explained. "His owner works and he can't always get home early enough to take his dog for a walk, so I do it during the day. I do it for lots of people. You didn't think they were all _my_ dogs, did you?"

Pause. He hadn't really thought about it.

"Odd jobs," she explained. "It keeps me in food and keeps my bills paid and all."

"Horses, too?"

She nodded. "You ride?" She asked.

He assumed she meant did he ride horses, so he answered, "Yeah." He was still getting used to the idea that around here, horses weren't something that most people encountered. Alice told him they were the hobbies of the obscenely wealthy, but Nel didn't look obscenely wealthy.

"Look—_hey!"_ She lurched when all four dogs started trying to tear her arm off and continue on their walk. "All right, the fantastic four down there are gonna go apeshit if I don't keep going, but here," she reached into her coat pocket and gave him a little piece of card. "My number's on there, you can call me if you ever wanna go riding or something. I'm there in the middle of the week when the students aren't around."

He read the card briefly. It read '_Eleanor Ravenna', _and a few phone numbers and an email address. "Eleanor?" He asked.

"Mm-hm. Nel is short for Eleanor."

He didn't have time to say anything else before she was dragged away in a sea of little dogs.

And then he continued on his way.

He didn't know where Alice was so he was apprehensive about the errand he had to run after the library, but he had to do it because he'd had these books for some time.

Hatter stood for several minutes at the apartment building's threshold, eyeing the building suspiciously as if it might suddenly leap up and attack him. Then he made his way inside and up the stairs, along the familiar route to the apartment on the third floor and, after another hesitation, rang the bell.

Carol opened the door. She looked a little drawn.

"Oh, hello, David," she said.

He felt awkward and uncomfortable. "I just had some books I borrowed here and I wanted to give them back." He turned around and reached into his bag around his fresh crop of library books, looking for the ones he'd taken from Alice's apartment.

"Well, come in—you don't have to hang out outside."

She led him inside.

"Alice isn't here," she said. "She hasn't been for a few days."

Hatter set the knapsack down on a chair and looked for the books he had to give back. Was she accusing him of debauching her daughter or something? Living in sin? He didn't know what was an appropriate answer so he wisely chose not to answer at all.

"Raymond says she's been sleeping at their place some nights," she said.

"Who?"

"Raymond Damm—Jason's father."

It still made no sense.

"JD is just a nickname," she explained. "His initials. Jason Damm—'JD'."

That surname had a lot of potential for abuse, Hatter thought absently. A whole _'Damm'_ family. If the situation had been anything except for what it was, he might have laughed, but this wasn't the time or the place.

"I, um… I don't think she's talking to me," Carol said softly. She looked concerned, worried.

It wasn't any of his business because it wasn't his family, but he couldn't keep his mouth shut.

"I can't really blame her," he said from the bookcase. "Five years is a long time to keep a secret like that. She had the right to know what you were doing when you were doing it, not five years later when she accidentally stumbled on it. It's one thing when your mother lies and tells you there's a tooth fairy—that's a secret that doesn't cause any real damage. But this, it's another kettle of onions."

Being this brutally honest and saying what he said wasn't likely to endear him to Carol; if she turned around and kicked him out of her apartment he wouldn't be surprised. But Alice needed someone on her side, even if she wasn't there.

To his surprise, the woman sat down in one of the plump chairs in the living room with a heavy sigh and said, "I know."

He didn't move from his spot.

"I should've told her. I planned on telling her, but you must know how she is—she gets an idea in her head and then she doesn't let it go, ever."

Most definitely he knew that.

"She wanted to find him so badly, she put _everything_ into trying to track him down because she wanted him to come home and wanted us to be a family again, but… the years went on and everything here changed and even if he'd turned up one day, there was no way we could've just picked up and gone on like we always had. He'd've come back to a whole different world and, well…"

She sighed again, put her face in her hands and her elbows on her knees like the weight of her own head was too much to hold up anymore.

"I don't know why I'm telling you this, I'm sorry, David," she apologized after a few minutes of very, very tense silence.

"I don't know why you're telling me, either, ma'am," he said. "I'm not Alice. I'm not the one you have to explain yourself to."

"I know," she sighed. "Will you tell her?"

"No. It's not the kind of thing you need a go-between for. You have to be the one who tells her."

He picked up his bag.

"I'll see myself out."

He was about to leave when he heard Carol call out again.

"David!"

"Yes?"

"Will you at least—when you see her—tell her we need to talk?"

He nodded. "I can do that."

"Thank you," she said, all sincerity. "You're a sweet man, David. I'm sorry you were dragged into this."

"It's all right," he assured her. "Things happen. I've been caught up in worse things. Afternoon, ma'am."

o…o

After everything that had happened in the last few days, Hatter was very, _very_ relieved to spend a little time in the peace of a stable with someone who was completely unconnected to all of the Hamilton drama that had been going on lately.

He took Nel up on her offer to take him riding, just to get away from everything that was going on and clear his head. It was a bit of a ride away from the city to an area where there were houses on acres of land, horses, cows, and an annoying small yappy dog that refused to stop barking at the car and get out of the road until Nel stopped the car and got out and picked it up and moved it.

He found the horses and the stable relaxing. That familiar horsey scent, and the smell of wood and leather and hay and sawdust and sweet grain that was the stable were all the same as it was in Wonderland and it felt familiar and comfortable.

He sighed.

Nel came into the aisle with him with two sets of halters and ropes slung over her shoulders.

"I trust you know what you're doing around horses," she said in a warning tone.

"Of course—why would I lie?" He asked.

She shrugged. "People have lied about sillier things," she said. Then she handed him one of the halters. "I'll show you into the front pasture—you'll have to catch Ziggy."

He took it. "'Ziggy'?" He asked, mildly amused by such a silly name for a horse.

"Zig-Zag," she told him. "That's what everyone calls him."

She led him to a fence and climbed through it.

"So what am I looking for, anyway?" Hatter asked her.

"Oh, you'll know him when you see him," she said. "They call him 'Zig-Zag' for a reason—he's got really curly hair all over."

She wasn't kidding—that horse's hair was crazier than his. Frizzy and curly and wavy all over.

Nel showed him where to find the brushes and picks and tack and went to work on her own choice—a chunky little palomino.

"Why's all of his tack say 'American McGee' on it?" He asked, reading the nametags on the saddle and bridle and the embroidery on his saddle pad.

"Oh, that's his name," she explained.

"Huh?"

"He was from good stock—dressage. His breeders wanted to train him to compete, but he just doesn't have the attitude for competition." She shrugged. "Some horses don't have it. He's got a fancier name—American McGee. We call him Ziggy because of his hair."

"Well, all right then," he said with a shrug, checking everything over quickly before climbing up. "Ziggy McGee is a nicer name anyway."

She grinned. "We all think so. C'mon, this way!"

He found her easy to talk to. Talking to someone _just_ to talk to them was an art Hatter had long fallen out of practice in. He didn't want or need anything from Nel; she didn't have inside information about the Casino, or the Resistance, and she didn't have resources he needed, nothing about her to take advantage of. He didn't want to swan-dive into her pants or steal from her so he didn't have to get her to let her guard down. There was no pressure. She was just _there,_ and she was funny and clever and just the littlest bit crackers, and talking for the sake of talk was _nice._

He was having to become re-acquainted with things that were so ordinary but that he'd forgotten how to do in Wonderland under the Queen of Hearts—conversation, walking around a city without looking over his shoulder every two seconds, going without body armour and _not_ feeling like he was partially-naked.

She showed him the trails where they could trail-ride and for a little while it felt like he was in Wonderland—the old Wonderland, when things were different and nicer and happier and there was no threat from the Queen and he could ride because he wanted to and talk to people just for the fun of conversation. Then they ended up racing up and down the hilly meadow behind the barn.

Nel won.

"So what about your girlfriend?" She asked on their way back from the meadow.

"How'd you know I had a girlfriend?" He asked, frowning. He'd never mentioned Alice, had he?

She grinned. "I'm good at people," she said. "And I saw you with a hickey on your neck once and except for the funny shirts you're not really screaming 'gay', so I'm guessing you have a girlfriend."

He had to laugh.

After that afternoon, he made riding with Nel a weekly occurrence.

o…o

Hatter's horse, American McGee, is a bit of an inside-joke with myself. Back in the 90s a game designer called American McGee produced a game called 'Alice', which was a corrupted steampunkish-gothic-horror version of Alice in Wonderland. My friend and I played it together, and by 'together' I mean she played the game and I sat behind her with a bowl of popcorn and made sarcastic commentary about her gameplay skills.


	6. Questions

I'm setting myself up for getting a lot of people upset with this chapter. I hope it explains a little of Carol's motivation—I mean, it's straight from the horse's mouth. Also, I tried to offer a little 'wait… _what?'_ moment about Alice and JD before she and Hatter sort themselves out over it. It's not as bad as it sounds, but still. I'll be in my bomb shelter if anyone needs me.

o…o

"I just don't know why you didn't tell me about this when you were thinking of doing it," Alice said. "Or even a little after. Why did it have to wait until I figured it out for myself? It just makes me wonder what_ else_ you're keeping a secret from me."

"Well, you have a half-cousin somewhere from my sister's wild youth," she said with obviously forced humour thick in her voice.

"I know, you've told me."

"Well, then, I guess there aren't any other secrets."

"Will you _please_ be serious?" She begged. "You said you wanted to talk and I'm here to talk, so stop making jokes. This is serious. I'm angry at you. I'm so angry I can't even _think_ straight."

"I'm sorry, sweetheart. I was just trying to lighten the mood, I guess."

"Well stop it. I don't want any mood-lightening and I don't want any jokes and I don't want any side-trips down memory lane or family stories or anything like that. I want you to tell me why you never mentioned that you divorced Daddy."

"I meant to, Alice, I really did. I _meant_ to, and I _wanted_ to, but… but when I saw how much you wanted to find him so we could be a family again, and how that was everything you did, I just… I put it off. And then a few months turned into a year and then a year turned into three and then it was all just too late. I'm so sorry. I can't apologize enough."

Alice scratched at the grain in the kitchen table.

"Why'd you do it?"

Carol wouldn't meet her eyes.

"Because after a while, when things were changing, I realized that even if your dad did just suddenly come back, we would be so different than we were before and there was just no way we could just pick up the pieces and go back to being how we were. It was never going to happen. After a year or so, maybe, but after five years, no. It was time to move on."

She didn't say anything to that. She couldn't

Her mother was right and Alice knew it. She'd probably known it for a long time, but she never admitted it. Eventually it was only her, and her alone, who was keeping up the frantic search for Robert; everyone else had moved on, content or at least not as bothered as she was by all of the unanswered questions left in the wake of his disappearance.

_Kidnapping,_ she reminded herself.

For such a long time she hated her father for leaving and never coming back—it was an automatic knee-jerk reaction to the subject of his disappearance, to be angry with him. Now that she knew the truth she had to amend her thinking and stop regarding it as something he did willingly and start acknowledging that he was _taken_ from them.

But it was too late for that, she figured; it was so long ago that the damage had long since been done. It'd coloured her entire world, her perceptions of everything around her—that she wasn't good enough, was somehow inherently faulty and caused men, all men, to leave her in the end. Boyfriends all left, not because she pushed them away, oh no, but because all men left her in the end, just like Daddy did.

What a disaster it all was, she realized. What a colossal, enormous, stupendous mess it all turned out to be. Just for that stupid fucking Queen and so she could have a better way to drain people of their emotions and control Wonderland.

The fact still remained that her mother and everyone else moved on and it was just she, Alice, who was so fanatical in her search that she was unapproachable with the subject of maybe starting to go on with her life.

"I have to move on, too," she whispered.

"Are you all right?"

Alice wiped her teary eyes on the bottom of her shirt. She tried hard not to flinch when her mother took her hand.

"I know it's time to bury Dad and get on with life," she said. "I wish you would've told me you were planning that, too, that you wanted the world to think he was dead."

Carol squeezed her hand. "We've been over this, Alice. There's no other explanation. There's _nothing._ I've been in contact with police in every state since he disappeared and no one in ten years has found anything. Either your father really is dead, or he's going about his life quite happily under a completely different identity. However you slice it, the man we knew as Robert Hamilton is dead. It's time to accept that."

It felt like it was probably a good place to open up and tell her mother exactly what had happened to him, that he'd been taken to Wonderland and his whole past was erased and he worked as the Queen's pet scientist for years, but she didn't. She couldn't say it. Maybe one day she _would_ tell her mother the truth—after all, she was being downright hypocritical in keeping this a secret from her when she was so angry that the divorce had been kept a secret from _her—_but such an immense information dump would require careful planning. This wasn't the right time.

Maybe it never would be, she mused. Maybe it was best to let her keep whatever peace she'd made with herself over the years, to let her maintain the reconciliation of her husband's disappearance. She was all right, after all, and it wouldn't feel right to take the peace she'd made—however tentative—and turn it upside down and backwards with stories of Wonderland and stolen people. It would open up a whole other entirely unnecessary can of worms and no one needed that right now.

Let her keep Robert Hamilton the way he was. If she didn't have to know Carpenter, then, well, perhaps that was a good thing.

"If you need any help with it, you can let me know," she said finally, getting up from the table.

"Are you going to be okay, Alice?"

She shrugged. "Dunno. I'm still angry with you. I still don't understand completely why you did what you did, but I'll get over it eventually. I'll be okay. And I don't hate you."

Carol smiled a shaky smile; her lower lip quivered and her eyes started to tear. She stood up.

"I could use a hug," she said.

"Yeah," Alice agreed. "Me too."

The shaky smile got shakier.

"But not from you," she finished. "Not right now. I'm sorry."

She picked up her coat and left.

o…o

JD wasn't around when Alice went looking for him, but his oldest sister, Maggie, was. She was in her thirties now, and in the absence of Mrs Damm had become the family matriarch. Even though she was grown up and married and moved out of the house, she still came once a week to check up on everyone—occasionally she came around to see Alice, too, because sometimes even _Alice_ forgot that she wasn't one of them. Except for the fact that she wasn't strawberry-blonde and freckled like all five of the Damm children were, she might as well have been.

Mag was good for conversation and advice sometimes, and Alice was glad to have someone to talk to. She was still too angry with her mother to be entirely comfortable discussing her personal relationship issues with her.

"I thought you'd be spending a nice day like this with your new boyfriend," Mag observed casually. "Jason told me."

Alice gave a noncommittal shrug.

"Problems already?" She asked.

Another shrug. "I think he's got some kind of stick up his ass about me and JD."

"Oh, no, not another one," the woman lamented with an enormous exasperated sigh.

Her head snapped up. "What does _that_ mean?"

"Let's be honest here, it wouldn't be the first time one of your relationships was trashed because of what you have together."

"You think he's jealous, then."

Mag shrugged, too. "Who's to say? It wouldn't surprise me, for one. Look at how close you and Jay are. That can be intimidating. A threat. Remember how it was when you were in high school?"

She made a face. "But we're not _in_ high school anymore. Hatter—David—is a grown man. He shouldn't be worrying."

"I'm sure he thinks that, too. But he still worries because… well, because whether you like it or not, Jay is still kind of a threat."

She snorted. "Some threat."

"Guy friends are always seen as competition because everyone in the _world_ has a stick up their ass about mixed-sex friendships. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying that's what most people are going to think. That's life."

"You make it sound so final," she groused. "Like there's no way anyone will ever see JD as anything but competition."

"Really, there's only one way you're going to know what's going on, and that's if you talk to him about it. The boyfriend, not Jay. He could sort it out on his own but maybe not."

"Why are boys so _stupid?"_ Alice grumbled.

"I dunno," she answered with a sigh. "You keep on thinking 'oh, they'll grow out of it eventually!' and then the next thing you know you're my age, and you don't understand them any better at thirty than you did at thir_teen."_

She gave a weak laugh.

"Give it some time, talk to him. If he's worth keeping around, he'll work it out. But if he's not going to let it go, then you have to think—is he really the best choice?"

And then Mag had to go and JD came in and their conversation was over, but it still lingered over Alice's head like a raincloud.

The thought of Hatter never accepting her friendship with JD, and having to leave him over it—it made her stomach drop out and a sense of dread creep into her chest like she rarely felt in any situation that didn't involve great height or the possibility of death.

Losing Hatter? No. She didn't—she _couldn't. _She felt stupidly clingy but she absolutely did _not_ want to let him go. Not over this—not over _anything._ With everything they'd been through together, to call it quits over something so stupidly simple was just ludicrous. He meant far too much to her.

How long had it been? A month and some? Two months? She hadn't really been counting. But he smiled and he made her laugh and she actually _trusted_ him, and he came all the way through the Looking Glass and was prepared to make a life here in a totally different world _for her,_ and… well…

Maybe it _was_ love after all. She'd told Jack she loved him and he wasn't exactly a long-term boyfriend, though that relationship had sped along like a highway. Was it so absurd to think she loved Hatter? _Love_ was a word she guarded, and guarded _well._ She never said it unless she meant it. It was possible, though. She could love him.

She sighed again.

Why was her life always so complicated?

"I know that look," JD said. "Something's badly wrong with you. You only look like that when you've got boyfriend problems or a pet died, and since I know you don't have any pets that can't be it."

She rubbed her forehead—headache.

"Let's go for a walk or something," he offered. "Then you can tell me what's bothering you."

They were quiet for a long, long time.

"It's Hatter," she said finally.

"Not taking too well to your dashing, sexy male best friend, huh?" He ran a hand theatrically through his long hair.

She shook her head, not really in the mood for amusement right now.

"You think you'll break up over it again?" He asked, more seriously now.

"I really, _really_ don't want to."

"This guy's really important to you, isn't he?"

Nod.

"How long've you known him, anyway?"

She shrugged. "Sometimes it feels like forever—other times it's like he's a total stranger."

"Nice dodge. I won't press it—you'll tell me when you're ready," he said with a shrug. "You said he wasn't the jealous type, though."

"I thought he wasn't. I think _he_ thought he wasn't, too."

"You know," he began like he was going to reveal something significant. "You've scared more than a few of my girlfriends away. A couple of boyfriends, too. They see what we have, you and me together, and they don't think they can compete."

"I know that," she snapped. "That's nothing new."

"Look at it from his point of view," he offered. "What if a friend of _his_ turned up, hm? Someone from his past, someone he knows really, really well? It doesn't have to be a woman, it's just someone he talks to so easily, someone he knows. He laughs with them, he cries with them, you know he's been through a lot with them. It seems like he's so easygoing with that person and you realize just how fresh and new and uncharted your relationship is. How d'you think that'd make you feel?"

She opened her mouth to make a smart remark but then closed it quickly. How _would_ she feel? There was still so much about Hatter that she didn't know, and so much about _her_ that _he_ didn't know. What _if_ he had someone who knew him, and his past, and everything about him the way she and JD knew each other?

Even if it wasn't a woman, it would be something that could spark jealousy. In her it probably _would_ spark jealousy because her usual reaction to things like that was to assume that a guy would leave her. Because all guys left. And Hatter, with his comment on chocolate and cream cake, must've had a trail of relationship trainwrecks behind him. He was enough like her that it wasn't a stretch to think that maybe, just maybe, he was thinking the same thing about her—that she was going to abandon him for someone she knew better.

"And you know, we don't have exactly a normal friendship, at least not since high school. Perceptive people can figure that out. Hell, even airborne bacteria can figure that out. He doesn't know you like I do. He hasn't been around for as long as I have. I'm a threat, even though he doesn't wanna think of me like that."

Without warning, she lurched forward and threw her arms around his waist and hugged him tightly.

"_Hurk!_ Oh, god, shit, be careful, Alice! Not so tight, I don't wanna puke in your hair. Once was enough."

She laughed wetly into his chest.

"I'm gonna tell you something, but if you repeat it to anyone I'll deny I said it," he warned.

She nodded wordlessly against him.

"Guys are _incredibly_ insecure creatures."

She laughed again, and this time it wasn't quite so wet. It felt good to laugh after spending the last few days in a funk.

"He might _know,_ realistically, and he might accept the things you tell him, but he's not _really_ gonna believe it until you reassure him. We play tough, but at the end of the day it's nice to have someone to put all your fears to rest."

"You play tough?" She asked teasingly. "Where was I when this happened?"

He smiled and kissed the top of her head.

"You've gotta tell him—remember, he's just one dangerously sexy man-shaped mound of insecurities wearing a hat."

"Do I have to tell him _everything?"_ She asked pointedly.

JD nodded slowly, fair eyebrows raised; Alice winced.

"Look at it this way," he offered. "What if you _don't_ tell him and he finds out himself from somewhere else? That won't do much for all those insecurities. Best if it comes from you. Then he can ask all the questions he wants."

She stepped back from him and sighed, rubbing her suddenly-teary eyes on the sleeve of her jacket.

"Thanks," she said. "You're a good friend."

"I know," he said back. He leaned forward and gave her a quick little peck on the lips. "I've gotta go. I've still got some boxes coming in from California—I mailed half of my possessions back to myself so now I've gotta sort 'em all out or my dad says he'll put them all up on Ebay. Good luck."

She nodded, taking her phone out of her back pocket. When JD was gone, she dialled Hatter's number and hoped desperately that he'd pick up.

"Hey, Hatter? Are you home? We need to talk."

o…o

Bear in mind that if you kill me for writing this, I won't be able to post the next chapter! Someone give me a nudge when it's safe to come out of this shelter.


	7. Answers

Okay! Finally, we get Hatter and Alice sorted out. Thanks for putting up with me having everyone go crazy over it. If you think about it, it's really not that implausible; Hatter would have his share of trust issues just like Alice has, and he would probably see a close friend—_male_ friend—of Alice's as a threat. And Alice would probably be so sick of the inevitable drama that comes with having a male best friend that she'd avoid trying to explain it all the time and having to defend herself. (Believe me, there is an unnecessary amount of extremely exaggerated drama that comes from having a best friend of the opposite sex.)

o…o

Hatter sat on a fence near the barn, using a hoof pick to scrape mud and horse crap from the soles of his boots before he left. His mind had been… elsewhere today. His body went through the motions on horseback, but he kept thinking about other things.

Mostly about Alice.

Except for saying that she and JD were 'just friends' she hadn't offered him any reassurance. The two of them were so close and at ease with each other and it was hard for him to really accept that there was nothing between them. Could two people really be so close without having _something_ other than friendship in their past?

He knew exactly how silly he was being and he found it frustrating. He wasn't the jealous type, he told himself over and over again—so why was this bothering him?

"You look pissed off," Nel observed as she climbed up onto the fence next to him, carefully balancing two of the barn cats in the hood of her sweatshirt and on her shoulder.

He shrugged and kept on picking his boots.

"Here, have a kitten," she said, plucking the little black one off of her shoulder and offering it to him. "Kittens make everything better."

He rolled his eyes.

"You're being silent, that's not like you. What's going on?"

"Girlfriend trouble," he said. "I won't bore you."

Nel shrugged. "All right, suit yourself. I just have to clean up in there and then I can drop you off at the subway and you can go home."

She jumped off the fence and put the cats down. She'd started towards the barn when she turned around and looked back at him.

"You know… sometimes it helps to have someone objective look at a problem," she offered. "I can't promise I'll be able to help but at least I can listen."

She was always like that—all too willing to listen to any problem or concern he had. Nel was a deeply odd character. She made jokes and laughed at absolutely everything, and when something was clearly bothering her then she made even _more_ jokes out of it. She worried for everyone else except herself and was an uncommonly sweet-natured person; it was impossible for him not to like her.

It was a long, long time since he'd had friends—actual friends. Not contacts, not connections, not insiders, but _friends._ It was a nice change from the guarded isolation he'd lived in out of necessity in Wonderland for most of his life.

Keeping to himself wasn't a matter of life and death anymore.

So he followed Nel into the barn, scooping up the cats as he went.

"She has this friend," he began abruptly as soon as he saw her.

"Uh-huh. Let me guess—guy friend?"

"Yeah."

"And he scares you because they're close?"

Hatter's eyebrows knitted in confusion. "Well… yes. How—?"

She went on. "And… let's see… there may be the last scraps of long-dead sexual tension left in that friendship and you know it's there and since it's a boy-girl friendship you see it as a threat to whatever _you_ have with her."

He didn't say anything.

"An ultimatum isn't the way to go, you know," she said. "I dunno if that's what you were thinking or not, but you can't make her choose. That's not the right thing to do. No one wants to be in that position and you definitely don't want to be the asshole who only got the girl to himself because he boxed her into a corner."

True, for a little while he'd been considering telling Alice to pick between him and her childhood love—it had to have been love between them, he couldn't see any other way; no heterosexual man with half a brain who could get one eye open could be around Alice and not want to take a running leap and swan-dive into her pants—but he'd thrown that idea out in a hurry because he knew it was stupid and it would only put another problem on Alice's shoulders.

For a little while he'd put JD aside because she was a wreck over her mother's divorce and the secret-keeping going on around it. He wasn't so consumed with jealousy that he couldn't comfort her when she needed it. But it was always there, a little spectre, a malevolent feeling in the periphery.

This couldn't just sit and stew forever.

"So… what do you think?" He asked finally.

Nel shuffled some sawdust and bedding back and forth with a rake idly, absently, her eyes unfocused and her face unreadable.

"I haven't talked to my best friend in over a year," she said finally.

That seemed to come completely out of the blue. "Oh. I'm sorry."

"He has a girlfriend now. She hates me enough for existing and for having this pesky vagina and she made him choose, and he wanted to try and make it work with her."

She stopped and leaned on her rake, looking at him with a downright accusatory expression.

"You see, I _am_ the friend that keeps ruining relationships because I exist. It's no fun. People have so many hangups about mixed-sex friendships that they can't get their heads out of their own asses about it. He's my _friend,_ but he can't have a girl friend and a girlfriend at the same time."

He hadn't considered that.

He slumped onto a hay bale and set the cats down on the floor. He'd been playing the victim, but they were both at fault; Alice was being evasive but he was having a girly little strop about the whole thing. And Alice... would she have really considered cutting her friend out of her life for him? But no, that would just make things with Alice go bitter—that the only reason he had her to himself was because he forced her to. He'd made such a case about _her_ trusting _him_ but here he was not trusting what _she_ said. She was being less than forthcoming with information, but for all she knew he wouldn't listen if she tried to explain.

"How d'you think she'd react if she found out you were hanging around with me?" She asked. "I'm gonna go out on a limb and say she probably wouldn't care."

Of course Alice wouldn't care—if she'd had problems with her friendship with JD and people assuming, like he was, that there was something more than friendship involved, she wouldn't be so quick to jump to the same conclusions about anyone else.

He and Nel didn't talk at all when she drove him to the station where he could catch the subway home. The entire trip he leaned on the pole in the middle of the car, lost in thought about the short but enlightening conversation with Nel, and about Alice, and JD.

He emerged in daylight, squinting.

He felt something buzzing in his pocket—the mobile phone Alice had insisted he get. He looked at the screen and it read _'Incoming call: Alice'._

Oh, how perfect, he thought. He picked it up.

"_Hey, Hatter? Are you home?"_ She asked before he could even get a word in. _"We need to talk."_

o…o

She met him outside the apartment building, looking unusually nervous and unsure of herself, her cheeks and nose whipped pink by the wind and the cold. The last time she looked that worried and vulnerable, they were in the forest near the Kingdom of the Knights and she was terrified that she'd be stuck in Wonderland forever.

She smiled weakly as he approached.

"Hi," she said softly.

"Hello," he said back. "D'you…" then he trailed off. "Let's go up."

Alice followed him slowly, a few steps behind him the whole way up, keeping her hands inside her coat pockets and her head down.

Neither of them spoke until they were in his apartment and the door was closed behind them.

"I'm sorry."

They looked up at each other, surprised that they'd both apologized at the same time.

"Should we just toss a coin to see who goes first?" She asked.

"My mum always said 'ladies first'," Hatter said. "But—I'm sorry. I'm sorry I've been such a pig about you and JD. I'm not gonna pretend I understand it, but… I shouldn't be such a jackass about it." He shifted uncomfortably, his hands fidgeting with the hem of his coat. "It's just…"

"Just what?"

"I'm new in your life. A greenhorn, as it were. You have a whole life here that I just sort of… fell into."

"Is that what this was about—you were afraid you just _intruded_ on my life and I didn't want you here?"

He looked down and away, embarrassed or ashamed or some combination of both, before nodding slowly. "Partly. I see you in your life and I guess I got it into my head that I was… unwanted, an intruder like you said."

"Oh, Hatter. That's just… it couldn't be further from the truth."

She came forward gingerly, and he took the last step that closed the distance between them and they hugged each other tightly.

"And I really am sorry for being such a pig about you and your mate. I shouldn't worry."

"Yeah, well…" she fidgeted with the buttons on the back of his coat before they stepped apart. "I didn't exactly offer an in-depth explanation, did I?"

He shrugged. "I shouldn't need one, should I?"

She shrugged, too. "Maybe—but you see me hanging around with another guy, and I've known him forever, and you're worried you just barged in on my life and interrupted it, and I guess you just…"

"Took a flying leap to the wrong conclusion?"

She didn't answer him right away; she didn't know how to start this conversation because she'd never actually had it with anyone before.

"Alice?"

"It's not exactly the wrong conclusion—well, sort of," she said weakly.

His face was completely stony and he didn't flinch, but his right hand clenched hard and betrayed his sudden shock right away.

"You slept with him, then." His voice was low and even and it made her nervous.

"Yeah," she admitted. "I did."

"When?" Was all he asked.

"Off and on since I was about sixteen. You do the math."

His eyes went a little wide. Six years? Seven years?

"So… what is it with him? D'you love him, or is it something else?"

"It really isn't like that. He's my friend," she said; Hatter rolled his eyes. "No, really. That's it. We're friends and that's it."

"But you slept with him."

"Yeah." Then she sighed. "It's just sex, Hatter. You can't tell me you were emotionally attached to every woman you ever slept with."

He didn't answer her but he was looking at her with a piteous expression that begged her to go on because he couldn't stand not knowing.

"Just because he was _there,"_ she said.

"That's why you slept with him—just because he was there? I don't find that at all comforting."

"JD and I were…" she groped for the right phrase. "Occasional lovers. When neither of us was with anyone else, and we both felt like it. He was there and I trusted him and it was safer than going bar-hopping."

"So that's it, then? He's just a friend that you slept with?"

"Yeah."

She couldn't explain it any better than that. JD was her friend and yes, she'd slept with him, but she had no romantic feelings for him at all. She loved him to death—as a friend, that was all. They were friends for a long, long time before they ever slept together and then it had only been an occasional thing. He was her friend and nothing else.

But she was upfront now. Everything was out on the table. Now it was Hatter's turn to decide if he could live with it.

"So…" he stretched the word out for a long breath, as if he hadn't thought about what he wanted to say next and wanted to buy some time to do so. "What about us?"

"Are we still an 'us'?"

"D'you want to be?"

"Yes," she answered him so quickly it surprised both of them.

They were still standing more than an arm's length away from each other and she shuffled a little closer to him, uncertain. The setting was hardly romantic and it probably wasn't the right time but she didn't give half a shit anymore. Screw waiting.

"I love you, Hatter."

His face lit up and he smiled hugely.

"Really?"

Yes, really—what she had with Hatter wasn't a normal relationship and couldn't be called such, but even if they hadn't fallen for each other they would still have that connection because of everything they'd been through. She liked him, and liked him a _lot,_ and she trusted him, and… and yes, she loved him.

What they had between them was strange—no doubt about that. She spent so much time trying to overanalyze it and think of a name for it without considering she could enjoy it without having to hang a label on it. Hatter was her lover, her friend; he was the only other person who knew what she went through in Wonderland. They argued and they made up; they disagreed on things; they were freakishly in-tune with each other and they were utterly baffled by one another. It was just Alice-and-Hatter. Why ruin it trying to figure out what to call it?

"Of course I do," she said. "If I didn't, I wouldn't've put up with all of your bullshit. I'd've just punched you and gotten it over with. You didn't intrude on my life and don't you _dare_ think you have."

He closed the distance between them in one stride and swept her up in his arms and kissed her soundly. Even though his grip was strong, she could feel him trembling as he held onto her.

"I love you, too, Alice," he whispered. "God, I love you."

She wrapped herself around him, arms and legs, and clung to him. He kissed her gently and she kissed him back hard, making him back her into the wall. He felt good, smelled good, tasted good. He tugged at her shirt, trying to pull it off of her while she still clung to him.

She loved him. He loved her.

That was that.

o…o

I felt like the scene with Nel was necessary, so Hatter can see both sides of the story. This is where I get frustrated—like Nel, I _am_ the best friend that ruins relationships because I exist. It sucks. People really do have a collective stick up their asses about male-female friendships. Granted, Alice had a sexual relationship with JD—it's possible for people to have sex without having romantic feelings for each other. Like she says: he was _there._ No commitment required.


	8. An Interlude

I actually wasn't planning on writing this chapter, because I didn't think I could fit it into the story. But it's been floating around in my head practically writing itself since I decided to scrap it, and now that I'm well past that point, I realize that the Hatter-and-JD thing doesn't have proper closure. Which is what this chapter was all about to begin with. So, I wrote it. It's more about character relationships than it is about progressing the story, but sometimes you've gotta do it that way.

**Update (3 May):** I'm killing this story for an unspecified amount of time. It's pretty ill-conceived, and no good, and frankly I'm starting to hate it for that. In the meantime, the story can idle in limbo where it was left at the end of this chapter.

o…o

He walked with Nel as far as the edge of the building, where she broke off to go on with Bello. It never failed to surprise him how well she could control that dog even though he probably outweighed her by at least a third. "Well, at least no one honks at me and makes catcalls when I walk him," was all she ever said about his size. "Saint Bernards are the anti-flirt."

Hatter told Alice about her, unsure what to expect. He admitted—nervously—that the person he'd become friendly with over the last months was another woman and then waited to see if she might get cross. She didn't. Her only reaction had been to raise her eyebrows and say, "And?", as if she expected there to be more to it than that.

"And nothing. It's just that the only good friend I've made here is, you know, a _girl."_

"Okay. Not like you're not fucking her when my back is turned or anything, are you?"

When she'd said it like that—so frankly and bluntly and crudely—he choked on his Chinese food and erupted into a coughing fit. "No! No, of course not, it's nothing like that!" He said quickly, preparing to reassure her as fast as he could and repair a hole he wasn't even sure was in the dike.

"All right, then it's no big deal." At his surprised look, she clarified. "What kind of freakin' hypocrite would I be if I got my undies in a bunch over you having a woman for a friend when I have JD? And I've slept with him—you haven't done anything with what's-her-name, have you?" When he shook his head emphatically 'no', she grinned and kissed the shocked expression off his face. "I trust you, okay? I'm not worried."

Really, he'd expected her to at least be the _littlest_ bit cross with him, if for nothing else than for keeping Nel a secret; or he'd expected her to be suspicious, or worried, or _something_ other than totally nonchalant and easygoing. He didn't think his troublesome Oyster would be that easygoing about it. But she was, and it surprised him.

Trust Alice to be level-headed when he least expected it.

Smiling, he went up to his apartment—and nearly jumped out of his boots when he saw there was a man sitting at his kitchen table, looking quite at home. He looked at the front door just to make sure he was actually in the right place; he was.

"I let myself in," the man said. "Hope you don't mind."

Instinct kicked in and in a flash he was over there, grasping the intruder by the shirt and lifting him right up out of his chair. "Who the fuck are you and how the hell did you get in here? You'd better talk fast!" He'd promised Alice he wouldn't use his right arm in her world but this seemed like an appropriate place to do so; if he couldn't give an explanation in the next five seconds then Hatter would break his whole damn face.

"Hey, let go. I like this shirt."

He prised Hatter's fingers open one at a time until all of them were unclasped.

"I figured we needed to talk," he went on, smooth and even and untroubled, like he ended up in stranger's apartments all the time. He stood back and extended his hand politely—almost daintily. "We've never been properly introduced and all. I'm JD."

He didn't take the offered hand. Instead, Hatter stood back, arms crossed, looking him up and down. In trying to pretend that his existence didn't bother him, he'd never said anything about wanting to meet JD, so he never had. Now he was _glad_ he hadn't until now. Meeting him before sorting things out with Alice might've made things worse.

JD was intimidatingly good-looking—he was almost girlishly small, just a few inches taller than Alice, and slender; long wavy strawberry-blond hair was pulled into a ponytail, with blue-green eyes and a rosy-fair compexion with a faint trace of freckles over his round face. He wore those ridiculously tight jeans that lots of people here wore, and a leather jacket.

He could see why Alice went for him 'just because he was there'. He'd never really been into men before, Hatter thought absently, but he might _almost_ consider changing his mind about it for JD if he was single.

"So you're JD, then," he said slowly.

Pause.

"Yeah. I just said."

Another pause.

"You're Hatter. I can see why Alice likes you. I could borrow you for a bit—I won't dent you or anything and she'll get you right back…"

That made Hatter take a step backwards and flatten himself against the door like he was trying to phase back through it. Alice told him that her friend went for men as well as women. ("And he's kind of a slut, too—he'll go for just about anyone," she said.) It didn't bother him, but he was unnerved that this guy got into his flat and might or might not have been trying to make a pass at him.

"Geezis, stop trying to climb the door like that. It's just a joke. Mostly. Unless you didn't want it to be."

"How'd you get in here? And why?" He asked.

"I slid under the door," he said.

Hatter crossed his arms.

"Bear in mind I could call the police for you being here."

JD sighed. "I blew your doorman. I figured it was an emergency."

"An emergency?" He was suddenly scared—had something happened to Alice?

"I figured we had to talk."

"And that constitutes an emergency?"

The other man sat back down at the kitchen table and crossed his legs in a startlingly feminine fashion; Hatter sat down across from him, leaning back in his chair and keeping his face stony.

"Seems we have something in common," he said.

"Plumbing?" Hatter asked.

"No, but good guess." He pressed his fingertips together gently. "We both love Alice."

He said nothing.

"Look, I know you don't trust me. I don't blame you and you wouldn't be the first. I'm here, I'm cute as a button, I've known Alice forever—freaks people out, y'know?"

"It's not that—I just don't like that you turned up in my flat without me knowing."

"Doorman was _very_ obliging with the right motivation," he said, grinning cheekily and winking. Then his serious expression came back and he leaned forward. "I give this talk to anyone who gets serious about her."

"Oh?"

"Alice doesn't trust people easy. She trusts _you_ and that's something huge."

"I know."

He remembered how guarded she was in Wonderland, how impossible to crack. When she finally said she trusted him he knew it didn't come easily—he'd had to prove himself again and again to her.

"She's loyal, too. Stupidly loyal. Once she decides she likes someone she'll let 'em get away with a _remarkable_ amount of utter bullshit. It's good if you're a friend and you fuck up every so often, but if you're a total shitwad then she'll just suffer in silence."

"Oh, I know that, too," he said quickly. Alice was most definitely, as JD said, _stupidly loyal_ to people once she got attached. She put up with _his_ moping, after all, and neither had he forgotten how much she defended Jack Heart even after she found out he'd been lying to her the entire time he knew her.

"Okay, so we're on the same page," he said.

Then he adopted the most disturbingly cheerful expression—the kind of sick grin that Mad March sometimes wore when he was coming up with some hideous new interrogation technique. Back when he actually had a head, rather than that cookie jar. JD reached across the table and took his hands in a surprisingly strong grip.

"Alice won't tell you to fuck off when you upset her, so I'll only say this once—if you make my Alice cry, then I'll make _you_ cry."

To punctuate this, he gripped his hands and crushed all of his fingers together; Hatter yelped in surprised pain and tried to pull his hands away—he didn't expect JD to be so strong. He couldn't free himself.

"Understood?"

"Yes, yes! Understood!"

"Good." He dropped his hands.

"What the hell was that all about?" He demanded, flexing his fingers to make sure they all still worked.

"I've seen Alice sit and endure some really dysfunctional relationships before because she decided she trusted someone and didn't want to take that trust back. She's funny like that—she tells other people to get the fuck out of bad situations when they're not working but she won't do it herself."

"She gave me what-for about you," he said.

"Yeah, I know."

"We got it all sorted out."

"Good, then that means I don't have to kick the shit out of either of you."

Another silence.

"She never slept with me, you know," JD said.

"Alice told me she did," he said plainly—it was nothing for Alice to lie about, so he knew she'd told him the truth.

"No, no, not that," he said. "She never stayed the night. She was always gone before breakfast."

He stayed silent a long time, turning that over and over again in his mind.

"Really?"

"Yeah. It's not that kind of relationship between us—I'm just a friend, you see. Not a boyfriend, never have been. She loves me to death and I love her but it's nothing even broadly romantic. The no-strings-attached sex is fine for her, but what with being up to her pretty little butt in commitment issues, it takes her a good long time to get to where she's comfortable spending the night with someone."

He said nothing.

JD got up from the table.

"You're a lucky man," he said. "Just remember what I said."

"Take care of her, you mean?"

"Oh, no, not that—Alice can take care of herself. She doesn't need protecting—she gets kind of offended when people try and play the knight-in-shining-armour shit with her."

Snort. "Yeah, true."

"But if you do anything to hurt her, just remember that my Irish-mafia relatives could have you eliminated with one phone call and you'll be scattered all up and down the eastern seaboard in little shreds."

"You smooth-talking romantic, you."

He grinned. He had dimples, too.

At the door, he turned around.

"Hey, by the way."

"Hum?"

"Who was that girl you were talking with? The one with the huge dog?"

"Oh, she's just a friend."

"Yeah, I figured that. Alice know about her?"

"I told her. She didn't care."

"I wouldn't think she would. Of all the things she worries about in her relationships, one thing that never bugs her is girl buddies. You'd think with her laundry-list of issues she'd go ape about it, but she never has. I guess she figured it'd be the pot calling the kettle black." Then he gave a sort of half-shrug. "What's dog-girl's name?"

He raised an eyebrow.

"Nel—why?"

The grin turned into that cheeky one again.

"She's cute," he said.

Then he left.

For some reason, he didn't like to think of JD going after Nel.

o…o

This chapter references another fic I wrote called 'Bedtime', in which Alice has issues sleeping the night with guys. You don't have to read it in order to understand this, but I thought it bears mentioning.


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